


Blood Red Snow

by Splat_Dragon



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Animal Attack, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Gore, Major Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splat_Dragon/pseuds/Splat_Dragon
Summary: He supposed he should be screaming--couldn’t quite remember when he had stopped. When his revolver had been knocked from his hand, flung into a snowdrift far out of his reach? When Archimedes had stopped shrieking, going still on the ground?When he had been rent open such that his blood stained the snow pink and his organs steamed?





	1. A Man Lost

Arthur had always thought his life would end with a bang.

 

The bang of a smoking gun, a target catching him off guard. An O'Driscoll landing a lucky shot. The bang of a trapdoor dropping open, a hangman's noose cinching tight around his throat.

 

He had always believed he'd die at the hands of a man. A man he had wronged, had angered, had underestimated for that one crucial moment.

 

But some part of him knew it wasn't a certainty. Life in his time was dangerous; with their lifestyle, doubly so. A horse's midstep could lead to a dangerous fall, ending his life with the bang of his skull against the ground. A falsely identified plant could bring his heart to a stop, the muffled bang of roots snapping as he harvested it marking his nearing death. A sip too much too drink, a hair too little attention paid, and he could be falling, plummeting until he hit the ground with a bang.

 

Predators always lurked in the shadows, eyes keen for any sign of weakness, prepared to end a life with a snarl and a flash of fangs. If one were lucky they might be able to fire off a single shot of their gun, but usually these deaths ended not with a bang, but a whimper.

  
  
  


_ ‘Wolf brain.’ _

 

_ ‘You might be the first bastard to ever have half his brains eaten by a wolf and end up more intelligent.’ _

 

If he could have, Arthur would have grinned as his own voice echoed in his head; he wasn't a dumb enough man to miss the irony. Maybe, if he came out of this, he would be half as smart as John had ever been, half as useful. Maybe Dutch would love him more, see him as more than just a workhorse toiling in the shadow cast by his golden boy.

 

He supposed he should be screaming--couldn’t quite remember when he had stopped. When his revolver had been knocked from his hand, flung into a snowdrift far out of his reach? When Archimedes had stopped shrieking, going still on the ground?

 

When he had been rent open such that his blood stained the snow pink and his organs steamed?

 

The wolves snarls echoed in his ears, seemingly satisfied now that he was downed. They didn't even have the decency to finish him off, to close their teeth around his throat and end his suffering. He found himself wishing, dearly, for someone, some _ thing _ ,  _ anything _ else to come along and finish the job. An O'Driscoll, even, if they would put a bullet between his eyes. A lawman who, for the most part, would have the empathy or, at least, the morals, to finish off a dying, suffering outlaw before taking him in. Even a cougar, at this point. Their attacks were vicious, but their kills were clean and quick.

 

Wolves, though, were a horrible, slow death. They pulled you down off your horse, grabbing you by your leg and bringing you to the ground, or spooking your horse such that it would buck you off, leave you to their mercies. Either way, you would be stunned, unable to defend yourself as they descended. If you were lucky, you still had a grip on your gun but, more often than not, your gun was still stashed safely on your saddle, which was rapidly getting farther and farther away.

 

Arthur wished that Archimedes had been such a horse, that he had bucked him off and been done with it. But the Walker had been as loyal as he was, too, too loyal, and had suffered for it. Had faced the wolves head on, fought them with tooth and hoof, had suffered the tearing of his flesh beneath their fangs and claws until the bloodloss made him too weak to stand; dropping, trembling, into the snow, rapidly descended upon by the starving pack.

 

But wolves, they didn't sink in their teeth and hold on. Didn't suffocate their prey, or break its neck. They worried at it, let its instincts and desperate will to survive work against it. Dealt it numerous small wounds that, in its panicked thrashing, the prey would open wider, the edges messier, hurrying along their inevitable demise.

 

So while you were still heaving on the ground, wind knocked out of you, they'd lunge. Sinking fangs into your soft parts--your legs, your arms, your stomach, your back. Leap out of reach before you could beat at them, another striking elsewhere while you were distracted, like massive, deadly mosquitoes. And once they were satisfied, they'd wait, standing just out of reach and staring, hulking omens of the dark dancing in faltering vision. Bloodied muzzles licked clean in anticipation of their first meal in days, frosted breath ghosting the air as hungry eyes gleamed in the shadows.

 

And when you began to weaken, no more a threat than a newborn babe, they would begin their feast. Step in, ignoring the weak thumps of your fists beating at them as they tore into you, eating through clothing as though it were nothing more than paper wrapping on a chocolate bar, eaten along with the bitter treat by a child too excited to take the time to unwrap it.

 

And Arthur had fought, too. His gun had been in hand when he'd been pulled off, a single bullet left in the chamber after his desperate attempts to frighten them off and then, when they gave chase, his best attempts to strike them down. But the pulsating mass of flesh and fur had absorbed the handful of bullets his gun held, their hunger so great they fought through the pain. And when he had been pulled down, fighting a losing battle against gravity, from his saddle, the force had sent his Revolver flying, vanishing into a pile of snow.

 

They had been on him, then, and he had regretted everything he had ever said to John about wolves. That the man had survived such an attack, had managed to live several days being harried by wolves; he had to be the strongest man that Arthur had ever met.

 

Stronger than Arthur could be.

 

Their teeth had sought purchase in his flesh, and no matter how fast he was, how quickly he moved to grab them, to throw them away, they were dancing out of reach. He would try to grab one that was worrying at his leg, only for it to leap back, and one to bite at his shoulder; that one would soon be replaced by another at his back. Arthur had tried to stand, more times than a child learning to walk, but every time a heavy weight had attached itself to him--to his back, his arm, his torso-- he was unable to keep his balance, crashing back into the snow, brought back into the wolves reach.

 

And wolves, when they feast, they start on the soft bits. The calves, the upper arms, the stomachs. Where there is excess skin and fat, less vital things that might be severed, or consumed, or destroyed, bringing an end to the suffering of their prey. They were not purposely cruel--Arthur knew that, would never accuse them of it even as he lay at their mercy--they were merely obeying their instincts, doing what was safest. Darting in and out made it less likely for you to be hit. Consuming your prey immediately after it was down gave it less time to cool, to begin to go bad--gave you more time before other, bigger predators scented the blood and came running.

 

The wolves snarled and snapped above him, jostling each other in a fight over the choicest parts of him. One was sent away, squealing, and sulks back in with its tail tucked to gnaw at his heel, the wolf who had struck it beginning to tear at his calf. Idly, he thought,  _ 'this should hurt' _ , and he twitched his leg in an attempt to pull it away. But a numbness had set in some time ago, brought on by blood loss, or perhaps some desperate attempt by his brain to make his passing peaceful. The wolves were unbothered, following his leg as they continued their feast.

 

A wolf stood before him, then, and he eyed it warily. It had easy access to his stomach, unprotected as it was. Already, there was a gash there, still healing from a bullet that had grazed him a few days gone, stitches torn out when he fell from the saddle.

 

The wolf was on him, then, and panic that had long dulled bubbled freely in his chest. Its fangs tore through his jacket, fur and fabric slowing it for only a moment before it was gulping down mouthfuls of bandage and flesh, uncaring of the weak writhing of the man beneath it, torso arching as he attempted to get away. Heels dug into the ground, but a wolf snarled, grabbed one in its teeth and  _ pulled _ , yanking him off balance and flat onto his back. The wolves that had backed away, disgruntled by his second  _ (fourth? Fifth?)  _ wind, quickly descend upon him like vultures upon a half rotten carcass, picking at the scraps of meat that still clung to his heel, his legs, his hips, his shoulders. The meat on Arthur's stomach, with the tender flesh and precious innards, was a treat first reserved for the hulking beast before him.

 

It tore into him, powerful jaws making short work of his ribs, the air filled with the crunching of shattering bones. He had seen wolves, coyotes, all manners of scavengers pick at carcasses, seen them empty the body cavity of the most nutritious parts, but so dazed was he, mind clouded, that he didn't realize what it was about to do.

 

A blunted muzzle vanished into the gaping wound that remained of his stomach, and there was a sickening  _ pulling _ sensation--he spasmed, his mind screaming that something was  _ wrong _ even as he continued to fade, and his intestines unraveled on the ground, mesenteries and fascia having been torn as the wolf destroyed his ribcage.

 

Hysterically, as he watched the wolf begin to chew on his entrails as though they were little more than particularly long pieces of jerky, his mind went to spaghetti. That was what Jack had called it, wasn't it? Their boy had drawn it, excitedly, not long after coming home, in hopes that Pearson would be able to replicate it, and everyone else would be able to try his new favorite food. His innards looked nauseatingly similar.

 

There, the seemingly endless intestines the wolf gulped down looked a great deal like the squiggly lines of the pasta drawn by a child's hand. His blood, that had blushed flushed the snow a rapidly darkening pink could be mistaken for the sauce, which Jack had colored with fingers coated in the red dust that covered everything in Lemoyne. And there, those dark chunks of organ  _ (he didn't know which ones they were, and didn't particularly care to, either) _ that the wolf had begun to sample shared a striking resemblance with the smeared thumbprints their boy had called meatballs.

 

The world around him was beginning to fade, and he was certain he must surely be more skeleton than man, only held to life by that sheer willpower that had gotten him through firefights and torture but, at the moment, was prolonging his death into something even the Devil would decry as inhumane. It felt as though he must have been laying there for hours, time slow and sluggish as it always became during a firefight, any time his life was at risk, although he knew it could have only been a minute or two.

 

How incredible, the lengths a life could change in only a minute. He had always tried to give men swift deaths, to end their suffering in seconds, often before they even knew he was there, or that the man they were speaking to had a gun. So how was it fair that he had to suffer so? But then again, when had his life ever been fair?

 

His mother, torn away from him when he was so young, by an illness. His father, a cruel drunkard, hanged when he was only eleven. Mary, still breathing, but undeniably cruel in the way only a lover could be. Mary and Izaac, his diamonds among a mountain of dirt, buried for naught more than ten dollars--and he had done the same as had been done to them for far, far less. Mac, shot so he fell free of his saddle, heel catching such that he was dragged by his own horse 'til he died. Jenny, neck snapped as a lawman's noose caught her while she took a corner, her horse's hooves slipping and pulling hard enough that she might as well have been hanged at the gallows. Davey, shot in just a way as to suffer the slow death of a man bleeding on the inside: that horrible trickle-way of bleeding that told you immediately that there was a massive gush somewhere inside. Sean, full of life and like an annoying little brother, shot down in front of his eyes.

 

And he wouldn't even get a grave, he realized, the wolf chewing at something that left him fighting for breath, the others gnawing at bone. His heel  _ crtch!' _ d, and a wolf worked at getting to the marrow. Wouldn't be able to face West, remember the good times they'd had. Hosea and Dutch, they'd never be able to find him. It wasn't unlike him to leave Camp for up to a week at a time, even more common now with strife thickening the air at camp far more than the swamps ever could. Even if they sent Charles after him, he would be nothing more than scattered bones, likely buried by the next snowfall. Would they think he had abandoned them? Up and left, as John had? Gone while the goin' was good, abandoned his family just because things were getting tough?

 

The thought churned his stomach more than the pain ever had, and he retched--but nothing came up, the contents of his stomach having joined his blood on the snow. His heart raced, and he gasped fruitlessly, unable to catch his breath, and even the animal part of his brain that had begun to take over was horrified when it realized it could see his heart lurching sluggishly  in the snow, desperately trying to make each pump count but slowing all the same. His lungs, laid out not too far from his heart, barely twitching with each desperate pull for air.

 

A wolf shifted, trying to push through its pack to find a more prime spot, one with more meat still left on the bone. Its paw  _ squelched _ on his heart, and Arthur gurgled, chest jerking upward; he lay still, head lolling to the side, blue eyes glazed and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

 

Arthur Morgan's suffering had ended.

 

The wolves, merely animals who were as desperate to survive as he had been, unable to feel regret for ending a life in such a manner, continued to feast. They nipped and growled, shoved one another aside as they stripped the corpse of its flesh. A fight broke out over the coveted heart and lungs, a scrawny yearling sending a grey-muzzled bitch squealing with a bite to her nose, before gulping down his prize.

 

When they had finished, they would retreat some five hundred feet or so, far enough away that they would be safe from the more dangerous scavengers, but close enough that they could return if they wished and try to wrestle the marrow from its bones. At sunrise, they would set out, beginning their twenty mile lope to return to their home territory, having traveled far more than that in search of food. Come the next week, they would do it all over again.


	2. Those Left Behind

Arthur should have been back days ago.

 

He left, often. Disappeared for days, weeks at a time. But he always told them when he would be gone for more than a few days; always sent them a letter if he would be gone longer than he expected.

 

But he hadn't said a word, hadn't sent a letter. The girls went down to the post office several times a day in hopes they'd find a letter from him, but every day their hopes were dashed and, empty-handed, they returned home. 

  
  


A week went by, and Dutch sent Charles out to find him. Arthur had gone to follow a lead in Annesburg, and the man searched the whole of Roanoke Ridge, even shelling out an exorbitant amount of money to hire a few men to help him clear out a cave full of Murfree Brood, for fear he might have been captured and held hostage. Tortured, eaten. He had been worried that he would find nothing but bloodied bones, picked clean by inbred cannibals. But he had not found Arthur inside the cave—had rescued a woman, instead, who confirmed that the outlaw had never stepped foot in the cave.

 

So he returned to Shady Belle, his pockets considerably lighter, nearly a week wasted, without Arthur at his side.

 

Dutch had not risked losing a week—many things could happen to a man in a week. Javier and John had been sent to comb over West Elizabeth, to see if anyone had seen him in Strawberry. Bill and Lenny had picked over The Heartlands and Cumberland Forest. Dutch had dared to go out, too, not wanting to waste a second that could mean life or death for his Boy, taking Micah along with him. They rode all throughout the rest of Lemoyne, trekked every inch of the swamp, stalked every alley in Saint Denis. Come dark, they had risked sneaking into the Rhodes Jailhouse on the off chance he had been arrested. Hosea had fought desperately to come, but Dutch had talked him down—what if Arthur came home while they were gone? What if he was hurt and needed help, as he had after escaping the O'Driscolls? 

 

But Hosea had not been idle. He sent out letters throughout the week, mailed one to every post office that Arthur would have access to. At first, he had addressed them to 'Tacitus Kilgore', as he always would. But those remained unclaimed and, after two days, he sent out letters for 'Arthur Callahan' . By the day Charles arrived back in camp, he had dared to send out letters addressed to one 'Arthur Morgan'. None of them had been answered; none had even been claimed. 

  
  


Group by group they trickled back in. Javier and John, first. He hadn't been in Strawberry since they'd left Clemens Point. Then came Bill and Lenny **—** his was a common face in Valentine, but even the butcher hadn't seen him in well over a week and a half. Dutch returned last, sending Micah back so he could comb over the swamps a third, fourth, fifth time. But finally even he had to concede defeat, return to Shady Belle, praying that one of Hosea's letters had been answered or, if not, at least claimed, so they would know he was _alive_. 

 

But he returned to camp, and they hadn't so much as been picked up. Dutch was so concerned, worry bordering on panic, that he couldn't find it in him to reprimand Hosea for putting them in danger by sending out letters addressed to a well known outlaw. It wouldn't be hard to track down which post office they had been sent from, and from there to get a description of the man who had mailed it. Then it would just be a manner of finding Hosea, and trailing him back to their camp. 

 

But Dutch couldn't find it in him to be angry. Losing a camp, having to find somewhere new; it would all be worth it if it brought their Boy  _ home _ .

 

None of them had been up in The Grizzlies since Colter. Bad memories clung to the mountains as thick as the snow, the ghosts of Davey, of Mac and Jenny lingering. No one cared to return any time soon—even Arthur, who wandered every state like a wild stallion without a herd or a band, as free as the wind to go where his hooves took him, hadn't stepped foot in The Grizzlies. 

 

It was why none of them had been sent to check. No one wanted to waste manpower searching a place they had no reason to think he might be. Charles had been sent to upper Lemoyne because that was where Arthur had been going; knowing that, it may have made little sense for Dutch to send them out to check the other states. But Arthur was notorious for getting sidetracked, for taking jobs, for exploring after getting his tasks done, before coming back to camp. More than once, back when they had camped at the Overlook, he had ridden out to Strawberry, only to return to camp with his horse covered in the red dust of Rhodes.

 

But in all his wandering, he had never returned to The Grizzlies, as far as they were aware. Had never packed his thick, thick winter coat on his horse before heading out, and he would be a suicidal fool to go up there without it. 

 

They had no way to know that he had been given a new winter coat up in Annesburg as thanks for saving a hunter's daughter from the Murfree Brood. Had no way of knowing that he had been told of a 'ghost horse' near Lake Isabella by the trapper to whom he sold his pelts. And there was no way of knowing that he _had_ sent them a letter, but that it had been destroyed by the dynamite John planted to kill the guards who surrounded the wagon that carried it—he had only gotten five dollars, and a few cheap pieces of jewelry. Most of the wagon's cargo had been letters and clothing, all destroyed in the blast.

 

Yet it was bordering on two weeks without a word from Arthur, and they were desperate. 

 

Sean, Bill and Micah had each been sent out to different states to 'ask' if people had seen him, to loosen their tongues. The girls stayed closer to home, slipping into the various shops and saloons in Saint Denis and using their individual talents and preferred tricks in hopes of being told about a blond-haired cowboy passing through. John and Lenny had dared to go into the area surrounding Blackwater, putting their ears to the ground and listening for any mention of a captured Son of Dutch.

 

Dutch roamed, crossing the states, desperately digging through the forests, the swamps, the towns and the deserts. He had shot and killed more O'Driscolls, he thought, in those few days, than he had since he and Colm had split years ago. They were all interrogated, questioned as to any prisoners they had, anyone they had recently, or not-so-recently, taken hostage, before being shot dead when they had nothing more to tell him. Each promising lead he was given ("some blond feller! I dinnae catch his name!") had been tracked down, but ultimately turned up nothing.

 

And Charles? 

 

Charles had been sent up to The Grizzlies. If Arthur had, for any reason, gone up there, Charles would find him. If he didn't find him up there then, Dutch, who was absolutely _not_ panicking, had decided, he would simply have to go search all the states. 

  
  


He had ridden Taima up to a stable not far from where the land began to change from forest to taiga, leaving her to be looked after. She was a wonderful horse, loyal to a fault, and wouldn't have balked or complained at the thick snowdrifts, the ice or the precarious paths. But hers was not a breed made for such frigid weather, legs not made for traversing the snow. So he rented a stocky horse, one with thick fur who had the look of an animal who had made the trek a dozen times (several dozen, if the ledger on the animals stall was accurate), and made his way up into the mountains. 

 

It was drastically different alone, with a horse he didn't know, without the wagon train he had traveled with before. He stopped at a familiar-seeming iced-over lake to get his bearings, mounting up after allowing the horse a moment to drink after breaking a hole in the thinnest part of the lake. 

  
  


Charles rode slowly. He scanned the ground, seeking hoofprints—they were common up here, elk and moose and bighorn sheep, but he could tell the difference at a glance. Not many people came through this part of The Grizzlies, so it would be easy enough to follow any horse-trails he found.

 

He almost overlooked the horse tracks; they were fairly old, the horse having been moving no faster than a trot. It was his first lead since leaving Roanoke Ridge and, so, he began to follow it. They didn’t go far before becoming muddled, overlaid with scattered paw-prints. Frowning, Charles’ hand dropped down to his bow, rising up in his saddle as he scanned his surroundings, checking to make sure the wolf pack hadn’t lingered. The trail was several days old, and the wolves had most likely moved on, but if this was their territory they may have been tailing him.

 

The trail carried on for an hours’ trot, before Charles reined in his gelding. Something laying atop the snow had caught his eye, and so he slung down from the horse’s saddle, taking a moment to hitch him to a pitiful looking tree. A pistol grabbed from his saddle, he crossed the field carefully, gun at the ready. Now would be the perfect time for a wolf to attack him, to charge out from around one of the massive snow drifts along with its fellows.

 

But he crossed the field unmolested, finally able to make out what had caught his attention. His breath caught in his throat, for a moment, when he made out a skeleton, sprawled out atop the snow. Charles allowed himself a moment to close his eyes, to breathe deeply. The chances of this being Arthur were small—why would Arthur be up in the Grizzlies? But still there was an anxious lump in his throat as he approached the skeleton, kneeling down beside it.

 

It had been there for a few days, he could tell that. The skeleton was dusted with snow, and he brushed it away carefully with gloved fingers. They were still stained pink with dried blood, for the most part stripped of muscle and flesh and sinew. The bones were scored with numerous, gashing marks that told of a grisly death, and Charles grimaced. Poor bastard—there were few natural deaths worse than that at the hands of a wolf. They were cruel beasts, if held to the standards of humans, and seldom killed quickly. He had sewn up many men who had had the misfortune to fall beneath a wolf’s fangs, had watched several of them bleed out despite his best efforts, seen others die of infection after weeks of suffering. This man had surely died a slow, painful death, and he pitied him.

 

Charles was careful not to think of him as ‘Arthur’. For the moment, he was just ‘a man’. Some unlucky, unknown bastard who had found himself on the wrong side of a pack of wolves. He wouldn’t be Arthur until Charles could find indisputable evidence that he was his nearest and dearest friend.

 

Finding evidence, however, with so much time passed, would be difficult.

 

The skeleton was in a bad way, having suffered several days in the harsh elements, dying in such a gruesome fashion. There were some scraps of clothing left, and Charles reached forward to take it carefully in his fingers. But the fabric was ragged, shredded and worn, whatever color it may have been originally was covered by bloodstains. He set the scrap aside, and dug through the snow in search of a few more, in hopes of finding one unmarred, but they were all the same, and so he gave up on using clothing to identify the corpse.

 

The height of the skeleton would have been a great help, easily discounting it as Arthur if it was the same height as Charles, or shorter. But whether spread by the wolves as they fed, or scattered by scavengers over the days since, it was impossible to tell what height the man may have been in life. Charles’ luck, it seemed, was against him. 

 

He couldn’t tell by the man’s clothing, or the man’s height, whether he was or wasn’t his friend. That didn’t leave him with much, and he scowled. If he could find the man’s horse, it would be a virtual treasure trove of information. The build would tell him if it was one of Arthur’s—it wouldn’t be definite, of course. He knew all of Arthur’s horses, but he also knew the man had a habit of rescuing horses from O’Driscolls and Raiders, riding them until he could bring them into a stable to find a good home for them. But the horse’s saddle would contain Arthur’s things, if it  _ were  _ him—his journal, his guns and other weapons. Arthur never went without them, would never leave them behind even if he switched to another horse.

 

Charles stood, wiping the snow off the knees of his pants before it could melt, stepping back. The horse couldn’t be too far away—he hadn’t seen hoofprints leading away from the area, after all. If he didn’t find the horse’s carcass, he could ride out and see if the horse had survived and fled. After all, if it had, the horse would have left tracks somewhere and, if anyone could find them, he could.

 

He began to walk slow circles, originating out from the skeleton. The horse’s carcass could be anywhere in the area, and there might be things hidden by the snow. Any particularly size-able pile of snow was dug through, checked for things: guns or other weapons or articles of clothing that had been spared. 

 

If he had done this when he first found the mixed tracks, where the pawprints met hoofprints, he would have found Arthur’s beloved hat. It had been largely untouched, aside from being pressed down into the snow by a wolf’s paw as it ran passed, knocked off Arthur’s head as his horse shied.

 

But no matter how many piles of snow he searched, nothing useful turned up. A few small bones—a knuckle here, a knee-cap there—but nothing identifiable. He found a palm-sized piece of fabric, but he didn’t recognize it, a handsome dark green in color. It gave him a bit of hope; in the time he had known Arthur, he had never seen him wear anything in such a color. Charles continued on, walking in ever-widening circles, digging through any heap of snow he found.

 

If he had searched the heap of snow directly under his dozing gelding, he would have found Arthur’s beloved Revolver. The one with the stag carved into the grip, that Dutch had bought him for his eighteenth birthday, purchased with legally acquired, hard-earned money.

 

After the better part of four hours, he had methodically searched every pile of snow within the clearing, and then some, wandering several hundred feet out of the range he had set for himself. Finally, however, he had to admit defeat, and tramped through the snow back towards the skeleton, intending on taking another look, to see if he could find anything he might have missed. 

 

If he had gone only another hundred feet, he would have found Archimedes hidden behind a particularly large snow drift. She was covered in only a light dusting of snow. Her saddle still secured to her back, girth cinched tight despite the gaping hole in her stomach where a bear had fed, holding most of his weapons and gear. Still in its pocket, ink blurred but mostly legible, Arthur’s journal remained in one piece. It was, perhaps, the only thing that Charles could have found that would have left no way to deny that the skeleton was Arthur’s.

  
  


Charles knelt down beside the skeleton, looking it over with a critical eye. Arthur had had an awful bullet wound on his shoulder, one that had cracked his collarbone and rib. It would be very easy to see; he remembered helping to change the bandages, remembered seeing chunks of bone in the wound. They had removed as many as they could, but the pockmark would still be obvious on the bones, and there would likely be some shards that had been missed.

 

He grimaced, shaking his head—most of the corpses ribs had been shattered, crunched beneath strong fangs as they tried to reach the marrow, broken into numerous small pieces. And the collarbone, Charles cursed, was gone completely, only a few harshly scored fragments fallen amongst the ribs to show it had been there. Carefully, he reached into the rib-cage, picking up each shard that he could find and carefully looking them over, muttering an apology to the skeleton. As he examined the bones, he was careful to put them back exactly as he found them, making certain not to touch the ribcage or the spine, not wanting to disturb the man’s final resting place any more than he already had.

 

Finally, though, he had to admit defeat. There was some relief there—all of the evidence pointed  _ against _ it being Arthur. While he would never be able to officially claim this man to not be him, seeing as he didn’t have a wallet holding a picture, or any other sort of identification, he felt strongly that it wasn’t. Arthur’s hat wasn’t there, nor was his clothing, his journal or his horse. And the man had no reason to be up there, as well—he could have spent years searching the mountains and never found the man’s identity, so at some point he had to throw in the towel.

 

Every minute he wasted looking for evidence that might not be there was a minute he could have used searching for Arthur, another minute something could be happening to him.

 

So Charles stood, muttering a quick apology to the man for disturbing him, wishing he could bury him but not wanting to waste the time, instead retrieving a fairly large chunk of wood and setting it upright in the snow just above the man’s head, a makeshift gravestone that would still show long after snow had covered the skeleton, before heading back to the borrowed horse. He mounted up, frowning and soothing the horse as it stumbled, tripping over what he assumed to be a stone, spurring it into motion up the mountain.

 

Arthur’s revolver was left, bent from the force of the horse’s step, unburied on top of the snow. 

  
  


Charles would spend almost another month looking for Arthur, the rest of the Gang keeping an eye and an ear out as they did their own work. But eventually they had to admit that he might not be coming home, might not be in the area anymore. That they were wasting desperately needed man-power when the Gang was starving and struggling. And slowly life went back to relative normality, aside from the huge hole in their hearts left where Arthur had been. They found themselves realizing just  _ how much _ he did as they had to take it onto their own shoulders, and just how much they had taken him for granted.

 

His tent would remain untouched for months, broken down and then set up every time they moved the camp, until one move the canvas was added to John’s tent, finally making it big enough for the whole family to live and sleep in. It would be years before they stopped turning to talk to him, years before they stopped looking up at the sound of a horse approaching the entrance to camp, expecting to see him there on his beloved gelding, with that sheepish grin of his.

 

It was only a matter of days before his skeleton was buried beneath the snow, only the makeshift grave-marker to show that he had ever been there. It took only a week for Archimedes to be consumed, only the metal from his tack left in the snow, among the scraps of gnawed on leather and the gelding’s skeleton. And only a week after, he was hidden beneath the snow as his master was.

 

Any signs that Arthur Morgan had been on that mountain were forever hidden within a month of his death by the elements.


End file.
